File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1996/96-11-06.061, message 44


Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 16:17:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Siddharth Chatterjee <siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: M-G: Letter to Richard Pithouse



Dear Richard,

Thank you for your illuminating posts from South Africa. They expose
the *real* and *concrete* conditions prevailing in your country as opposed
to the Trotskyian fantasies of Robert Malecki (see below) who has
been vociferously corresponding with you on this thread. Malecki (whose
politics I have only recently begun to understand although warned about
them sometime back) wants to build pure parties of the "Leninist
Bolshevik" model which will be independent of all "bourgeois formations",
"rotten blocks" and "coalitions" in ALL parts of the world no matter
what concrete conditions actually prevail there. Any party or movement,
which does not satisfy all of the Trotskyian criteria in toto, will be
condemned as traitors and sellers of the revolution.

All evidence and arguments to the contrary will be in vain for Trotskyism
is a fanatical idealism which relentlessly tries to fit the world to
its theory instead of the other way around. It is true that many comrades
that subscribe to this ideology are honestly mistaken but one will note
that in no part of the world has a Trotskyist party ever led a revolution
which has involved the masses of people. All they can do is stand on
the sidelines and condemn or criticize mass movements as Malecki's
shrill accusations against the ANC show. Previously, on the M1 list,
he had dismissed the deaths of the Turkish hungerstrikers as being
inconsequential. Another remarkable fact is their overt pre-occupation
with industrial workers - the peasant question does not exist for them,
which is of paramount importance in third-world countries. They have
a snobbish attitude towards the peasantry and do not consider it a
revolutionary force.

If you try to refute their idealist preconceptions of the world (as your
example of the material conditions of a South African township woman
compared to those of a western worker showed), they will answer that
today capitalist relations have penetrated the whole planet, so we are
all in a sense "workers" who sell our wage labor. Actually, there were
workers during the feudal and slave economies who were also exploited.
Since the fact of exploitation existed in all pre-capitalist class
societies, slavery = feudalism = capitalism. This is the great historical
soup and dialectical logic taken to its luminescent heights! 

They fail to recognize the great uneven nature of capitalist development
as Lenin did decades ago. The great gulf between people living in the 
villages and slums of the third-world and the western proletariat escapes
them completely. From their vantage point in the cool Northern lands,
they draw fairy-tale caricatures and fantasies of the revolution to come.

Long ago, Lenin said that Trotskyism was left in rheoric and right in
essence. They indiscriminately hurl the adjective
"Stalinist" at anyone who challenges or counterposes their view from
a materialistic viewpoint (you have so far escaped this designation
since you are new and also feathers are unruffled for now). Note that
this same adjective is routinely hurled by the bourgeoise and the
right-wing and even "left" intellectuals at revolutionary and even
social-democratic movements that challenge the rule of capital.            

Mahatma Gandhi was one asked what he thought of "Western Civilization".
He replied that he thought it would be a good idea. Similarly, Noam
Chomsky commented in one of his talks that the concept of "Free-Market
Democracy" was a good idea. To complete the Holy Trinity, "Trotskyism ....
.......... would be a good idea". 


Finally, you ask Malecki for the names of groups that he favors. They
don't exist, my friend, except in his head. It is all a fantasy you see.

Sincerely,

SC



> On Mon, 4 Nov 1996, Robert Malecki wrote:

Robert Malecki
 
> > Well Richard, actually the process you describe about the ANC is not new. We 
> > had the February and October revolutions in Russia! However, to believe that 
> > the South African CP will break with the ANC I find from a distance pretty 
> > doubtful. Perhaps a left pressure group on the ANC and its more 
> > pro-bougeoios politics can be seen. However, the history of the CPs is not 
> > any pretty sight anywhere (including the Cuban CP) and i doubt that the CP 
> > in South Africa differs very much from its sister parties in Europe or in 
> > Latin America. However perhaps you could give some background and prove me 
> > wrong on that point.

---------snip--------- 

> > What is needed in South Africa as elsewhere is a sharp break with both the 
> > Nationalist elements like the ANC (who historically everywhere they have 
> > taken power in Africa get sucked into both conciously and unconciously the 
> > politics of imperialism and the local bougeoisie.) A sharp break with the 
> > historic tradition of the CP's is neccessary becvause of their history of 
> > supporting popular front coalitions and governments instead of fighting 
> > openly in the imterests of poor and working class people on a program which 
> > leads to power. This must be done INDEPENDENTLY of all bougeois formations 
> > and rotten blocks and coalitions. The communists can only base their support 
> > on the millions of poor and working class people and an independent struggle 
> > for power. this must be connected to the other African countries and in the 
> > final analisis the entire world because that is the only *real*solution to 
> > our problems. The traditional marxist saying that "a working man has no 
> > country" must be put in the front room again.
> 
---------snip-------
 
> > This in direct opposition to the present policies of the CP's 
> > internationally who are always talking about "stages" of revolution in order 
> > to block with the so called "progressive" forces against the reactionary 
> > forces. But in reality is a direct betrayal of poor and working class people!
> 
> > American blacks. In fact you have a very superfiscal view of what is going 
> > on in America. 
> 
--------- snip ----------
 
> > It is only by gathering the cadre for a new revolutionary International that 
> > we can find the way forward. This process is both slow and difficult but it 
> > is the only way forward. There are groups Internationally and even in South 
> > Africa groups (at present fairly small) but growing in size as the crisis of 
> > Social Democracy and the CPs grows.

Richard Pithouse
> 
> Do you no the names of these groups?
> 




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